


heartworn

by ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes



Category: Original Work
Genre: ADHD, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Bullying, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Everyone Needs A Hug, Fist Fights, Gen, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Jewish Character, Metaphors, Mexican Character, Prison, Pyromania, Racism, Real Life, Underage Drug Use, Underage Smoking, bowie just wants to be loved, dallas makes bad choices, if dallas could just chill for 0.0012 seconds that would be great, kill me, recurring themes, weird names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 01:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes/pseuds/ThatWeirdGuyInTheBushes
Summary: heartworn-n. a relationship or friendship that you can’t get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.an arsonist, in five parts





	heartworn

**Author's Note:**

> My first completed original work, yay! This took so long, and I'm still not totally happy with it, but I'm just kind of glad it's done.
> 
> Title is from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.

**i.** ** match**

  
The first time Dallas and Bowie meet, Bowie is wearing green. Which means that they become friends, because Dallas' favorite color is green, and that's all that they have to have in common.

Bowie is hiding behind his dad's legs, when they meet. Dallas stands in front of his dad, trying to block out all the boring grown-up talk.

"Hey," He says. "I'm Dallas." Then he holds out his hand, like Daddy does when he meets new people.

The boy removes himself from his father's protection, just slightly, and stares at Dallas' hand like he doesn't know what to do with it. Dallas lets the hand fall by his side again. "I'm Bowie," He responds. Then he pauses, like he's unsure of himself, before brightening considerably. "Wanna play with my Legoes?"

Dallas practically jumps in delight. "Yeah!"

And then something is started.

Perhaps they are a product of circumstance; Dallas is bossy, Bowie is pliant. Bowie is anxious to be liked, Dallas likes everything. Maybe they are drawn together for lack of someone more similar.

Whatever the case, it sticks.

They spend most of their time in Bowie's living room, buried in a fort, watching a VHS play movies that they've seen a billion times but can never manage to get tired of. And when Bowie gets a tree house, they spend their time up there.

Dallas only learns that their friendship is weird when he starts school, and Kyle from music class asks Bowie to be his friend and pours his milk on Dallas. It runs down his shirt, wet and cold, and he cries because his hair feels sticky. Everyone laughs even harder when he starts to cry.

He would have gone home early, but when the nurse tried to call his parents nobody answered.

His mom picks him up when school ends, and she snickers after he tells her what happened. He bites his lip to keep from crying because people always laugh harder when you cry.

On the weekend, his parents sleep all day but tell him he's not allowed to go to Bowie's, so he doesn't. He just stares at a candle on the counter, his head in his arms, and wonders what being burnt feels like. He touches the candle, just to find out. It hurts.

He wonders what paper would look like if it burned.

The weekend is over before he can see.

He forgets about the question after that, mostly. But not entirely; Still let's it curl up in the back of his mind, dormant and sleepy like his mom and dad.

He stubs his toe one day, on the corner of the trailer wall. He cries out, bending down and holding his foot in his hands. His mom wakes up and asks what's wrong. When he tells her he hurt his toe, she rolls her eyes and tells him to get over it. But Dallas doesn't really care about that, because it's the first time she's talked to him all day.

He thinks about the fire, and wonders if mom and dad would love him more if he burned the drawings he made that they didn't like.

"I wanna run away," He tells Bowie on a Thursday as they sit up in their tree house. Bowie's eyes go really wide. His wheat blond hair is longer than it was last year.

"Why?"

"Because." Dallas sticks out his bottom lip in a pout. He's curled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, burying his head into his kneecaps.

The conversation probably continued from there, but Dallas doesn't remember the rest of it.

His mom and dad are arguing again, when Dallas gets home. He's eight now, which means he has to take the bus. His parents are always arguing when he gets home, these days.

He sneaks into his room and wishes there was a way to block out the yelling as he reads his favorite Hardy Boys book for the second time. He's been lying down in bed for so long that he's almost asleep when the sound of glass shattering makes him jerk awake. He runs out of his room and sees his mom and dad yelling even louder, with a broken bottle lying next to the wall behind mom.

"Fuck you!" His dad is screaming. His mom screams it back. Dallas doesn't know what it means, but he guesses it's just something people say when they're angry.

He runs back into his room and hides under the covers until they stop.

The next day at school, when the teacher makes him mad, Dallas yells "Fuck you" like his dad does. He gets a trip to the principals office and the words 'Behavorial Issues' on his record for his trouble.

Kyle laughs at him and calls him a beaner when he gets back to class, even though Dallas doesn't know what it means and he doesn't think Kyle does either.

He runs away for the first time that night, when his parents are yelling at him and he says he was just copying them and they send him to his room. He packs a backpack, sneaks out of the trailer, and spends the night in Bowie's tree house. He takes the bus with Bowie, and comes back home when school is done.

Nobody says anything about it, and it's only when he's laying awake that night that he considers nobody realized he was gone.

Bowie makes a new friend that week, a girl named Mikaila. Dallas frowns and stomps when he hears about it, but tries not to be jealous. He fails, because Bowie is _his _friend, and he refuses to lose his only friend to a _girl. _He spends the next recess in the library, trying to do that peaceful protest thing he read about once. Protest Bowie ditching him for some girl.

"Come on, Dal! I just want all of us to be friends!" Bowie tells him as he is marching down to the library. "Just give her a chance." He looks sad, and Dallas feels guilty.

"Fine," He responds. "But only one chance."

She bounces on the balls of her toes when they see eachother. She's taller than him, which he hates.

"Hi, I'm Mikaila!" She puts out her hand like he's supposed to shake it, and he does. Her hands are sweaty, and he hates that too.

"Dallas," He mumbles, and puts his hands in his pockets to stop from fidgeting with them.

"Its nice to meet you. I'm Bowie's best friend, by the way." At that moment, his hatred becomes official.

He glares harder.

Then, three days later, Kyle pushes him into the ground and knocks the book out of his hand. And Mikaila pushes Kyle into the ground and gives Dallas back his book. So maybe she's not that bad.

Then, it's Spring Break, and he's stuck at home, in a little bubble where no one knows he exists.

And so he steals his moms lighter, gathers some old drawings, finds some more kids in the trailer park who are just as desperate for attention as him, and they light a fire in the road. Honestly, he's surprised the police don't show up.

The fire is mesmerizing, flickering red and blue and gold, reflecting back in the eyes of the children around him. His skin, perpetually cold, grows warm. And suddenly his parents attention doesn't matter. All that matter is holding on to this moment, when there is no trailer park and no bullies and no best friends, just the taste of paper smoke on his tongue.

Dallas chases it every day after school, even as the number of kids willing to burn drop, for they have had their fill, they have had their taste of smoke, and they are sated. He is not. The three or so kids remaining leave too, when he starts getting more dangerous. When he starts to light bigger fires, when he starts to hold his hand closer.

All of them are gone by the time he starts pressing the lighter into his arm, just to see what it feels like. It burns.

He invites Bowie, eventually, who invites Mikaila because of course he does. They're both a bit scared, and don't really feel like doing it again. He thinks of ditching them, like he would if this was a movie, but then he thinks about being alone and the train of thought is stopped.

Instead of spending all his time after school burning, he just brings the lighter with him to all his play dates. And then he spends the nights burning. He gets less sleep, but it's fine because he doesn't need it anyway.

Dallas gets older quietly.

**ii** **.** ** flint**

Middle school starts, and it is very different and yet very much not different at all.

One day, during free time, Dallas is hanging around the back of the school, playing with his lighter and a couple of sticks he found laying around. He's alone because Bowie is sick and him and Mikaila never hang out without him.

He drops a lit stick, and the fire begins to catch on the grass. Dallas considers it. He thinks about letting it spread for a second, about letting all of his troubles be engulfed in flames. He shakes off the thought almost immediately. He's stomping it out when he hears Mrs. Dempsey the recess aid shrieking. She runs over and stomps out the rest of the fire, snatching the lighter from his hands with an apoplectic look. He learned that word yesterday.

"What were you thinking?" She yells in his ear as she grabs his wrist, nails digging in painfully.

"It was an accident," He insists. He would try to look more worried, but he feels too tired to give her an expression.

She drags him to the principal, who calls a police officer. He gets three months in Juvie, which Bowie calls unfair and Mikaila calls profiling. When he asks what she means, she tells him that it's because he's Mexican. He's never really thought about that having any impact before.

Juvie happens.

There's not really another word for it, besides _happening._ He gets punched a lot. Like, ten times, at least. Probably more. Someone tries to stab him once, which is eventful. At one point his cell mate, a kid with at least three years on him, holds him down and carves a gang symbol into his wrist in big, deep cuts, then leaves him to bleed out on the floor. He gets transferred to new cell.

He doesn't talk about it a lot, after he gets out. He does start wearing long sleeves though, for no particular reason.

He tells Bowie about it, during one of the sleepovers that are starting to get more and more common. Talks while curled up against the wall, like he can't do it any other way. Bowie hugs him really tight when he's finished.

A part of Dallas expects Bowie to respond, to reveal one of his own secrets, to take out one of his pieces and give it up. But he doesn't. He wishes it didn't matter as much as it does.

Mikaila, who is objectively smarter than Bowie, agrees to help him catch up on the homework he missed. He's struck one day with the odd realization that none of their eyes are the same shade of brown.

"Are you seriously still carrying around a lighter?" Asks Mikaila one afternoon as they sit in a Starbucks, doing homework and drinking Bowie's allowance in coffee.

"Maybe I should develop a smoking habit so I have an excuse for it," He snarks. Bowie laughs. She rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. He hides his own lips, which have curled up like the edges of burning paper, behind his cup.

He feels safe here.

At home, things are not so idyllic. Dallas is angry, because his mom is pregnant, has been pregnant for three months, got pregnant while he was locked up. He can recognize it for what it is, an attempt to replace him, to start over with a new kid so they don't have to deal with their fuck up of an old one.

He's not going to pretend it doesn't hurt, because it does.

But hey, at least it gets his mom sober for once. Yeah, he's realized that, too. That his parents were more than just frequent nappers, that they were just stuck in an alcohol/drug induced slumber all day.

"I wish I could have a younger sibling," Bowie laments. Dallas would protest, would tell his friend that they should just trade then, because Dallas doesn't want the kid. But he doesn't, because he thinks when Bowie says he wants a younger sibling, what he really means is that he still had two parents who loved eachother enough to want one, too. And whenever Dallas thinks about how much he hates his family, he ends up thinking that at least his parents are still together.

"At least you get to be the older brother. I'm the youngest, and it sucks!" Mikaila whines. Dallas just lets out a little huff of air.

He spends his thirteenth birthday party in Bowie's tree house. They let Mikaila up for the first time, and change the writing on the door from the 'No Grills Alod' that they wrote when they were five to say 'No Grills Alod- Except Mikaila.'

Mikaila gets him an MP3 player and Bowie gets him headphones, like an organized effort. He gives them both a really long hug, something he doesn't do a lot these days, and swears to himself that he'll keep the gifts forever.

Mom and dad give him a new sweater that it is too long in the wrists. It is easy to hide in, and that's what he likes about it most.

His mom gives birth in July. He sits in the waiting room for twelve hours, playing with the sleeves of his sweater and listening to his music at full blast, anxiety thrumming through his veins.

His little sisters name is June, and Dallas taps out the beat to Sunflower on her arm on the ride home.

He almost gives up on burning, for a while there. He doesn't wanna get arrested again, he wants to make his friends proud, especially after their awesome gift, but he just-

He's doing it again by August.

One night, he's out burning last year's homework when a figure shambles up to him. "Hey, man," Says the voice. "Got a lighter?" Dallas nods, and beckons the figure closer.

It's a teenager, probably about fourteen, with curly, dark hair and skin that's white like the fog that clings to glass when you breathe on it. He's wrapped up in a thick green jacket and holding a trembling cigarette. Dallas passes over the lighter and watches the fire cast the sharp angles of the boys body into high definition.

"Names Jordan," Says the man, stretching out a paper thin hand. It is taken with gentle care, like it will crumple beneath too much pressure.

"Dallas," He responds warily.

"Thanks for the- Wait a second, I know you!" Jordan affects the air of a person running into an old high school friend. "We went to Juvie at the same time, didn't we? Were you there between September and March?" Dallas nodded, shrinking in on himself. "Oh, nice."

Jordan pauses to take a drag of his cigarette and blows the smoke away from Dallas' face, which is appreciated. "Anyway." Jordan stands. "Nice to meet you bro. God, small world, right? See ya!" Jordan waves a hand in the air as he disappears, and Dallas laughs incredulously.

Well that was certainly entertaining.

When school starts again, Dallas and Bowie have no classes together. Mikaila is, of course, in all AP classes, and therefore with neither of them.

He tries not to feel lonely, and fails.

Bowie spends all his time at Soccer practice, Dallas spends all his time in detention, and he's never felt more isolated. No matter how much their friendship disintegrates over time, however, Dallas knows that it ends in October.

He's walking over to sit next to Bowie during lunch when he hears the conversation. He stops.

"Yeah, he went to Juvie for arson last year. I think he's, like, traumatized or something." Bowie is saying to a group of other kids. Dallas recognizes some of them as his old bullies.

"Why'd he get locked up?" One of the boys asks.

"He tried to burn the school down."

Dallas _fumes._ How dare he? How fucking dare he? Bitterness and betrayal and anger flood his mind, block out all rational thoughts.

Dallas takes the few steps needed to reach the group, his loud stomping causing Bowie to turn. The other boys face immediately falls. "Dal-" He starts, like he's trying to calm a wild animal. Dallas takes his open carton of milk and splashes it in Bowie's face.

"Fuck you," He spits. Then he storms off, dumps his food in the trash, and goes into the bathroom to curl up and stare at the wall, lungs too small to breathe and eyes too dry to form tears.

He breaks his MP3 player, immediately regrets it, and then doesn't.

At home, things continue their ever more perilous downward spiral. His parents pay attention to June and June alone, and only give him a piece of their precious time to yell at him.

And when they are not yelling at him, they are screaming at each other. One night, the conversation starts with Dallas' grades, and then becomes his fathers lax parenting, and then becomes a screaming match that he is caught on the couch in the middle of.

It ends with the door slamming, the car driving off, and Dallas and his father alone in a room much colder than it had been a few minutes before.

His father is silent when they leave, but as soon as the door shuts he screams, slamming his hands onto the counter and beginning to tear miscellaneous objects apart in his rage. Dallas moves forward, trying to calm his fathers rage.

He lays a hand on the man's shoulder, in the middle of a platitude when the fist lands firmly on his jaw. Dallas is knocked to the floor with the force of it, and is only just pulling himself up by the time his father has worn out his anger and retired into bed.

That night, he packs his clothes, books and some food into a backpack and leaves.

He does not go to Bowie's tree house, this time. Instead, he sleeps on the steps of a store, too tired and aching to try and find anywhere else.

And the next morning he wakes up, and goes to school, and tries to act like everything is fine.

He pulls up a YouTube video of some guy sleeping over night in his school, and decides to try and copy the steps. It should be entertaining, if nothing else. Plus, his school has shitty security cameras that everyone knows glitch out all the time. Maybe he should just hide out in the locker rooms... Yeah, that's probably a smarter idea.

He still can't believe this is happening.

Suddenly, as he's walking towards detention, Dallas hears someone shout his name. He turns, and is greeted by the face of Mikaila. He glares and keeps walking. She continues to shout after him, and he continues to ignore her until her hand lands on his shoulder. He pushes her off, but stops.

"What?" He demands angrily. Her hair is longer than its ever been, ink black and curly all the way to her waist. Her shirt is white and long sleeved, but her jeans are the same as they've always been. She's wearing makeup. It doesn't fit with the rest of her. He blinks, and loses his train of thought.

"Bowie says he's sorry." Dallas focuses on the warm, mahogany brown color of her hand. Her nails are short. He can tell that they weren't clipped like that because of how uneven they are. Mikaila has never bitten her nails before.

"I don't care."

"Dal, please. I just want things to go back to normal." He's taller than her. He's never been taller than her before.

"If Bowie actually wants me to forgive him, he can grovel at my feet himself." She's still wearing the ring her step brother got her when she was five. It's really simple, just a pretty painted-gold band on her index finger that she claims to have never taken off.

"Please." Finally, he looks at her face. Her makeup has smudged since she put it on, and it doesn't hide the bags under her eyes. It looks like she's been rubbing at it.

Dallas spares a thought for what will happen if he says yes. If things will go back to normal. Or if he's just setting himself up for betrayal again.

If he says yes, he thinks he might cry. And if there is one thing that Dallas has learned in his life, it's that people always laugh harder when you cry.

He walks away and says nothing at all.

**iii** **.** ** wick**

He doesn't sleep in the school. He's too afraid of getting caught. He spends the night in a 7/11 without any cameras, hiding in the bathroom and waiting for everyone to leave.

He stays there for three days until the employees start to talk about finally updating the security system. Then he sleeps under a bridge.

The cold nips at his skin, but it hardly makes it through the cloud of buzzing numbness around his head. He thinks he should be lonely, but these days he isn't really anything at all.

A new quarter starts at school, and Dallas' elective switches. He's currently searching for a seat, eyes lidded and tired. He can barely get to sleep, most nights. He caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror this morning. Insomnia isn't a good look on him; Brown eyes ("Coffee colored," Bowie says. "Your eyes look like coffee. Black, like how you drink it.") hunched over dark bags, skin taking on a pallid, sickly tone it never has before.

"Hey," Comes a voice to his left. He turns to see Jordan. "It's Dallas, right?" He puts down his stuff on the desk next to Dallas'.

"Last time I checked," He responds dryly. Jordan laughs, loud.

"You're funny. We should hang out sometime!" Jordan suddenly looks excited, leaning forwards on his desk. "Have you ever been tagging before? It's really fun!" Dallas shakes his head, bemused.

"Can we like, trade numbers?"

"I don't... have a phone. Sorry." Dallas cringes. Jordan just moves on, like it doesn't really matter.

He likes that. Or at least, he thinks he does.

Jordan gives a place to meet up, and looks excited.

Dallas chews on the inside of his cheek.

Later that night, as he's walking, he thinks. Dallas hasn't done anything illegal that isn't related to burning. But he does that so frequently that it doesn't really feel like a crime anymore.

But graffiti? He knows that that's... Well, to put it mildly, not the best habit for a juvenile offender to start engaging in. Maybe that's the fun part, though. Doing something you know will get you in trouble if you get caught.

Maybe Jordan's an adrenaline junkie. Or just a regular junkie. He does give off that sort of vibe.

Finally, the street corner Jordan told him about comes into view. Jordan greets him joyously. Perhaps he's on a constant sugar high.

Jordan has a backpack slung over his shoulder, and it rattles when he moves. "Come on," He says. "I know a spot that's virtually untouched." He slices his hand through the air when he says it, horizontally, like he's cutting through the skyline. The thought makes Dallas smile, a little. He doesn't know anybody who talks like Jordan does.

"You ever tagged before?" Dallas blinks. "Wait, sorry, already asked you that. I have like, _really_ bad ADHD." He laughs as he says it, like it's funny. Dallas laughs too. Jordan just has a laugh like that.

"It's fine."

Jordan grinds to a halt, setting his bag on the ground like it is a newborn. He unzips it, revealing a collection that probably numbers two dozen cans of spray paint. He reaches deep inside it and emerges with a sketchbook, flipping open to one of the later pages. "Here," He says. "I've been wanting to make this one for a while. You can help out, if you want."

Dallas' artistic abilities can most graciously be summed up as 'underwhelming', so he declines. "Nah," He says. "I'm content to watch." Jordan gives a little thumbs up and hands Dallas the sketchpad.

"Can you hold this? Thanks." Dallas cleans a spot on the concrete with his shoes and, once he's satisfied, sits down crosslegged with the notebook in his lap, propped up to face Jordan.

Jordan himself is shaking a blue can of spray paint ferociously, an expression of comic intensity on his face. Then, he begins to work.

Dallas has never seen someone graffiti something up close, so maybe he's not the best judge, but he does like to think he knows good art when he sees it. And Jordan?

Jordan is fucking amazing. Even more amazing is that he keeps up a steady stream of chatter while doing it.

"So," He asks at one point. "What'd you go to Juvie for?"

"Arson, I think."

"You think?" Jordan stops painting, turning to Dallas with an amused expression.

"I mean, I didn't technically burn anything down. Just playing with matches. My friend said they only got me cause I was Mexican." He grimaces at both the thought of Mikaila and of Juvie. Neither bring good feelings.

"Can't relate. I was _super _guilty." Jordan laughs and turns back around.

"Guilty of what, exactly?"

"Possession. My mom still likes to think I'm innocent, that it was cause I was Jewish, or somethin', but she says that about a lot of things." So Dallas was right about the junkie thing then. Not a particularly great thing to be right about.

Dallas probably shouldn't hang out with such a bad influence. Or maybe this is a good thing, so _he_ can finally stop being the only bad influence in the cherubic lives of everyone around him.

"Hand me the yellow," Jordan says, and the conversation is over.

He creates a picture of a sunset, only a cliche subversion thanks to the sun also being an eye. It's detailed, beautiful, and shockingly disturbing. Dallas does not quite know if he likes it or not.

By the time he is done, Jordan's hands are shaking. He roots around in the side pocket of his backpack and pulls out a small plastic bag of pills. He holds them up to Dallas, an offering. Dallas shakes his head.

He is already a pyromaniac, he doesn't need a drug addiction on top of it.

Jordan shrugs, and puts two of the pills in his mouth, crunching down on them and closing his eyes with an expression of bliss.

"So, what do we do now?" Asks Dallas, almost amused as he rests his chin on his fist.

"No idea, bro." A seconds pause, where Dallas opens his mouth to speak. "Wait, wait, wait," Jordan interrupts before the sound can finish, clenching his already shut eyes as tight as possible. "I know this bar that runs a uh..." He trails off, snapping his fingers like a magician, except instead of summoning a rabbit he's trying to summon words. "A fight club, thing. It's pretty fun to watch. Or to, y'know, fight in."

"Sure. Sounds cool," Dallas responds. He doesn't really know if he actually thinks it's cool, it just feels like the right thing to say. Words come out a lot easier, when he just says the right thing, and not what he wants to, he's starting to learn. Rolling off his tongue instead of punching through his teeth.

Jordan leads him on a walk, which takes fifteen minutes, tops. Before Dallas even knows it they're at the bar, O'Reily's or something, listening to the laughing and music inside.

"Come on," Jordan says. He repeats it a lot, as he drags in Dallas by the wrist. Come on, come on. Like Dallas will only move forward if he's begged. He's not sure if he likes that or not.

Jordan stumbles up to the bartender, and he must say something because the girl is leading them down into the basement, but Dallas is too focused on the fact that Jordan's hand hasn't left, like he just forgot it was there.

Dallas doesn't like being touched, he remembers, like he's thinking of someone else. Because Dallas doesn't like being touched, but he doesn't really mind this. Or maybe he just thinks he does. He's so unsure about things, these days.

As they descend, the music from the bar begins to fade and the loud sounds of fighting start to filter in. Once they get to the bottom of the staircase, the bartender leaves, disappears like she never existed in the first place.

It's a rather big basement, by basement standards, with barrels of product lining the walls. A ring of people has formed in the center of the basement. Dallas suddenly wishes he were taller, and able to see over all these peoples shoulders, like Jordan surely can.

Dallas pushes his way through the circle, Jordan slurring "Excuse me"'s in the wake of his path. When he finally reaches the innermost circle, he's almost surprised. Not at the two men fighting, he'd expected that, but at his own feelings when he sees it.

Because it's not panic, or amusement, or anything else that reaches in, pries his brain open and worms itself inside: It's want. Because something inside of Dallas stirs at the fight, at the two people in the man made arena, out for blood.

It doesn't matter to these people, where he comes from or who his friends used to be or how he looks at fire like he wants to swallow it alive, even though he's the one who's been swallowed, most days.

These people would only care about how hard he can throw a punch.

And something about that is _wonderful._

He doesn't fight that night, not with Jordan right there, but he tells himself that he'll come back soon. When he's angry enough. Dallas has never had a place to store his anger, besides his chest, besides a little cavity behind his sternum he hollowed out for the purpose, but his fists doesn't sound that bad a spot. He wonders what it is like to pour out anger, instead of bottling it up inside.

It should be a good thing, he thinks.

It _will _be a good thing, he insists to himself.

It will.

**iv** **.** ** candle**

Before they leave, Dallas asks Jordan what he said to the bartender that made her take him to the basement. "Oh, it's really simple; You just ask for her to show you the backroom."

"That's it?" Dallas is surprised. He thought the code system would be a bit more... elaborate, than that.

"Yep, told you it was simple."

The next week, Dallas goes back, without Jordan at his side. He learns a few things, that night.

The first thing he learns is that fights are a lot more difficult than they look. Dallas can take a lot of hits, but throwing a punch is harder. He loses his first fight. And his second, and his third, and then he has to stop fighting.

But by the end of the third fight, he's smiling so big that it stretches out his face. A stranger pulls him off the ground, and laughs at his expression. "You good, kid?"

"Yeah," Dallas responds, meaning it. "Yeah, I'm good."

"Fucking nutjob," The stranger replies, still laughing.

The second thing that Dallas learns is how good it feels to be _loud._ How unexpectedly fantastic he feels when he's at the center of a crowds attention, when he's laughing and yelling, and his voice mixes in with a cacophony of other voices and he can't even tell which one is his anymore.

During his fourth fight, right after losing, still sitting on the cold cement, laughing and letting it mix into the cheers around him, Dallas looks up at the ceiling and prays to God to help anyone who will ever try to make him die _quiet_.

He keeps going to school, but it all feels like a warm up round now. Like none of its real, just the build up for the real fight happening soon. Sometimes, that's a good thing. Lets him feel better about shit he doesn't like.

And sometimes it's a feel like your life is being wasted because you haven't hit anything in two hours and you need to curl up into a ball in the bathroom to get rid of the panic, thing.

Otherwise, it's fine.

After his sixth fight, someone takes pity on him. "Don't throw all your weight into the hit, kid." Grabs his arm, positions it. "Just use your arm, and you won't fall forward if you miss. See?" The guy does the hit in slow motion, to show Dallas what it looks like. Dallas copies him. "Yeah, that's better, now you're gettin' it!"

He continues, "Try to hit them in a weak spot, like their back. And don't be afraid to take a cheap shot every once in a while. Only one rule in Fight Club, right?" The guy laughs, and Dallas laughs with him. He does that a lot, recently, catches laughter like it's something infectious.

"Dallas." He holds out a hand.

"Cole." The man takes it.

On his seventh fight, Dallas is pitted against an older kid, probably high school age. They stare at eachother, circle the makeshift ring. Then, the kid moves forward, swinging like his arm doesn't weigh anything.

Dallas sidesteps, and drives his fist into the other kids lower back. The kid stumbles, but doesn't fall down, and tries his same rush tactic. This time, Dallas aims for his jaw, and when he misses, he doesn't fall forward.

He gets punched in the nose and hears something crack. _Probably broken,_ he thinks distantly.

Dallas aims for the kids jaw again, and he doesn't miss, this time. The kid crumples to the ground, and he doesn't get back up. Cole lifts Dallas' arm into the air.

Dallas smiles like he's invincible, and then holds his chin up to prove it. The blood from his nose spills into his mouth and stains his teeth, and something in the red tastes like victory.

Dallas loses and wins at a 2:1 ratio, but Cole always bets on him, every time. It makes him feel worthy, in a way most things don't.

Jordan starts showing up at all his matches, cheering him on. He's the only consistent friend Dallas has, at the moment, and it feels good not to be abandoned.

"Where do you live, anyways?" He asks one day. Jordan visibly deflates. He's so easy to read, Jordan, so simplistic in the way he wears expressions. What kind of life have you had, Dallas wonders, to still be simple like that?

"On Holly, just off of Washington street. I mostly crash at my buddy Erin's though, cause I hate my parents." The address is familiar, in a vague way.

"Any siblings?"

"Step brother and sister."

"Cool. I have a little sister. Haven't seen her in a while though." He doesn't know how to say anything else, so he just says "Do you wanna go burning with me tonight?"

"Sure."

They end up destroying Erin's middle school year book, one of the ones from before they started transitioning that they hate. "Go ahead and get rid of it, I don't give a shit."

So they do.

"I can kind of understand why you like this so much," Jordan says as they watch the book pages crumble. Dallas lifts an eyebrow. "Cause it's- Y'know." He makes vague grabby gestures at the air. "Cathartic."

"Yeah, I guess it is."

"I got a call from my mom today," Jordan says suddenly, after a long pause. Dallas' gaze darts up in surprise.

"What did she say?"

"Just wanted me to come back, at first. Then she said that I was uh... The reason that our family was falling apart. Y'know, the usual shit." He shrugs like he can physically push off the weight of his words. Dallas feels an unexpected rush of pity and empathy so potent it makes him dizzy.

"Shit, dude, that _sucks_. Are you... doing okay?"

"Well, I'm not as high as I wish I was, but other than that I'm good." He wipes at his eyes, laughing and clearly trying to pretend he isn't crying.

Jordan brings him to Erin's house, and Erin lets him crash on their couch for the night. It feels good, to sleep on something soft for the first time in what might as well be decades.

"Why do you like that shit in the first place?" It's the morning, Dallas is on the ratty couch, one hand behind his head and the other dangling off the side, watching as Jordan crushes some Oxy between his teeth.

"I don't know, just makes everything quieter. I can... I can do everything better when my thoughts are quiet." It's the most personal thing Dallas thinks he's ever heard Jordan say.

Erin lets Dallas stay another night. "Just one more," they insist, pointing a painted black fingernail at his chest.

"Just one more," He agrees.

That night, Dallas wakes up with the unexplainable feeling that something has gone horribly wrong. He bolts up on the couch, scanning the dim room. He doesn't see anything immediately off until he turns on the lights and realizes Jordan isn't on the other couch.

Dallas feels a hot strike of anxiety split his chest. Sure, Jordan could just be wandering around, but something cold in his lungs tells him that isn't the case.

He grabs a flashlight from Erin's kitchen counter and runs out into the cold, dark night. He searches frantically, shining the flashlight over every stretch of sidewalk, positive this isn't just a bout of superstition and is in fact something much, much worse.

And he's right.

Two minutes later, Dallas is kneeling beside Jordan's unconscious body. Then he's dialing 911 on Jordan's phone, trying to ignore the dribble of vomit and foam pouring out of Jordan's mouth.

Three minutes after that, he's in the back of an ambulance, rushing to the hospital, biting down on the meat of his palm just to make sure he's still human.

Then he's sitting in a hospital waiting room, curled in on himself like he's physically keeping together his pieces and wearing a terrified expression that says he's failing. He calls Erin, who answers on the first ring and is there beside him in far less time than they should of taken.

Their hair is messy, pale blonde standing up in every direction, green eyes still smudged with last night's eyeliner. They collapse into the seat beside Dallas and don't say anything at all.

Maybe Dallas falls asleep. He doesn't really know, at that point. Maybe he retreats so far into his mind that he stops being human, stops feeling anything, and maybe that's a little like sleeping, in a way.

All he knows is that he wakes up when Mikaila walks into the waiting room.

He doesn't realize it's her, at first. Just sees the vague outline of a family at the edge of his vision, but then he spots her hair, and he can never forget what her hair looks like. Her eyes latch onto him at the same time.

"What are you doing here?" She asks him. Her mom looks at her in surprise, probably wondering why her daughter is talking to some random homeless looking kid in a hospital.

"Why do you care?" He replies, without any real emotion behind it. Putting feeling into his voice is too much effort, so he doesn't.

She flinches, like she's hurt by that, and he almost feels bad. Then he swallows the guilt and pushes it down into the tips of his fingers, where he can punch it out later. He doesn't have room to care about her right now. Is there a limit, he wonders, to how many people you can care about?

"I'm here for my brother," She says, in that stiff way she does when she wants to pretend something isn't bothering her even when it is, like she did when he made jokes about prison or jokes about his parents or jokes about things he wasn't joking about at all.

"I'm sorry honey, who is this?" Her mom interrupts. Her makeup is perfect and her outfit doesn't have a single wrinkle, like it isn't the middle of night. Her and Mikaila look really similar, but the only thing he thinks is noticeable is that they both have the same earrings.

"Just a kid from school. I don't really know him that well." She turns away from him, and he doesn't care about her so it shouldn't hurt but it does. She swallows, purses her lips together, doesn't let her eyes flicker back.

He hates that. He hates her, he hates her hair, he hates her bitten down nails, he hates how none of their eyes are the same shade of brown, he hates how she wears makeup, and the thing he hates most is doesn't really hate her at all.

He wants to scream at her, he wants to be loud. He needs to say something because he swore that he wouldn't die quiet and this feels a lot like dying. But just as he opens his mouth, Erin places a hand on his arm.

"Don't get us kicked out," They growl. Dallas doesn't know how he should look at them, after that, but he's kind of glad they stopped him. Yelling may be what he's supposed to do, but he doesn't want to, not really. "If I have to leave here before I know Jordan's alright I'm gonna kill you."

"Jordan?" Whispers Mikaila, sounding a bit scared.

"Yeah, why do you-" He suddenly realises, puts together all the pieces.

"No," She says. "Are we talking about the same Jordan? Tall, pale-?" Dallas nods.

Mikaila puts out her foot, like she's about to move, then glances back at her mom and stops. Then she makes a strangled noise, like something painful is clawing it's way out of her esophagus, and steps forward anyway.

He watches her like she's moving in slow motion as she crosses the room and falls down into the seat next to him.

"Mikaila," Her mom says sharply. Mikaila doesn't respond, just places her bony elbows on her thighs and stares at the floor between them. She's thinner than when he saw her last, just a bit. Her angles are sharper than they used to be.

"Do you know what happened?" She asks, small. He looks at her hard. He's not used to Mikaila being small in that way. He's always been the small one. Not physically, just emotionally, verbally. He never felt things like they did, didn't have enough room in himself to fit all the emotions that they always seemed to be bursting with.

"Overdose. I found him." He hates her. Or maybe he's just tired of her, like he's tired of everything, like he keeps trying to pretend he isn't tired of everything.

She makes a wretched noise again, except this one is different, doesn't sound like it's clawing it's way out of her throat, more like it's being dragged out. It's a sob and a scream and something he's never heard before all rolled into one. She presses her hand over her mouth, like she can force the noise back and keep living like she never had to make it.

She starts to cry, vicious and loud. Her head lolls to the side, hits his shoulder, and he lets it stay there, not kind enough to put his arm around her and not selfish enough to push her away.

They stay there like that for the longest time.

But soon Dallas starts to get the feeling, and he's cursing himself, _not now, not now. _He can't stop it though.

He stands up and rushes out of the waiting room, feeling an itch building in his chest, horrible and impossible to scratch, and he needs to leave, needs to get rid of it, needs to _hit something._

He's so focused on getting out that he almost doesn't see Bowie.

Almost being the key word.

He's in the parking lot, and he's staring at Dallas with those big eyes, somehow three yards and a million miles away all at once.

"What are you doing here?" They both ask in unison. Bowie blushes. Dallas doesn't.

"Mikaila called me," Bowie says at last. "What about you?"

"None of your business."

Bowie deflates, like he expected Dallas to have moved on by now, like Dallas is a petty child, still whining about some minor slight from months ago, like he should have _gotten over it._

"No," He demands. To Bowie, to the universe. "No. You don't get to act like you didn't do anything. Like I'm being ridiculous!" Bowie flinches, steps back.

"Dal, I didn't-"

"Don't call me that!"

"Dallas, then," He says slowly. "I'm sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. I made a horrible mistake, but you know me. You know I wouldn't do something like that."

"Do I though?" Dallas whispers, looking down at the concrete, at the cracks in it. "Do I really know you at all?"

And then a thought strikes: Did he ever?

"What- Of course we know eachother! I know you, Dallas! I know your favorite color, and your favorite song, your favorite book. I know you."

He's right, in a way. Bowie knows those things about Dallas. Knows all the thoughts and trials and stories that he says are too long to tell when he really means too painful. But Dallas doesn't know those things about Bowie. Because Bowie doesn't do that. He doesn't give out parts of himself, just collects the pieces of other people, puts them together and tries to find himself between the cracks.

And Dallas hates it, hates that he's not as much of a person as he is a broken glass shard for Bowie to put into a mirror and try to find a reflection in. Hates that Bowie doesn't have to play keep away with his broken pieces, throw out parts and toss them to other people just to stop himself from getting sliced open.

Hates that Bowie is whole enough to not have enough broken pieces to give. Wishes, desperately, that _he_ could be like that, too. Knows that he doesn't have the strength to put himself back together, doesn't love the whole of himself enough to try.

Maybe that's their fundamental difference; Not one being bad and the other being good, but one being a collection of shards and the other being a collector. Dallas never giving enough and Bowie always taking too much.

Maybe that's the reason that they fell apart so clearly, so distinctly. Because Dallas' broken bits couldn't fit into a clear enough picture.

"_You_ know _me_," He says. "But do I know you? You don't tell me anything. You don't talk about yourself, ever. You're so desperate to be liked that you don't even have a personality! You just become whatever gets you the most friends!" It's true, but it burns him when he says it, scorches his throat and leaves blisters behind. He should stop talking, he thinks as Bowie stops shrinking, as he starts drawing himself up to his full height, getting ready to fight.

He doesn't want to fight Bowie.

But _he does. _Sick and twisted up inside, Dallas does.

And that's always been the problem, hasn't it?

"Stop," Bowie whispers.

_Okay_, Dallas wants to say. _I'm sorry, let's be friends, I forgive you, this is good enough._

"No," He says instead. Then, like he says when he's angry, like dad used to say when he was angry: "Fuck you."

And then Bowie is moving. Swinging clumsily, throwing his weight behind his hand and falling forward when he misses. Dallas shoves him before he can right himself, throwing him onto the ground.

"Give up," He says. Bowie growls and throws himself forward, and this time he doesn't miss, hitting Dallas square in the nose. Blood begins gushing down his face in rapid bursts. He clutches at it, cursing, and hits Bowie back.

Bowie stumbles from the fist to his jaw, looking dazed. Then he growls and jumps forward, catching Dallas off guard so much that he falls to the ground.

"I just wanted to be your friend!" Bowie yells as he brings his fist down. Dallas pushes up his knee and catches Bowie in the hip, causing him to lean back and give Dallas the upper hand.

"And I just wanted to be good enough! For once in my life!" He puncuates each word with a punch.

"What are you doing?" Shouts a new voice. It's Mikaila. Dallas looks up sharply, feels Bowie turn his head. He scrambles off of him, panting and pulling his knees up to his chest, glaring at the ground.

"Nothing," They mutter in unison.

"God, you guys are the worst!" Her voice breaks, and when Dallas looks up he can see how red rimmed her eyes are. She's a mess. They all are. "Can you not just _talk,_ for once in your lives?"

There's a long stretch of silence, when Bowie finally says: "I'm still sorry. Even though your an idiot, I'm sorry." Then, when Dallas glares at him for a moment, he continues. "I want to be liked so bad because my parents don't pay attention to me. And I'm really sad, all the time, because I don't have control over anything, and I told those jerks about you because I wanted to be popular, and there's no real excuse for it but-" He wipes away the tears flowing down his face. "But I just wanted to-"

"I'm homeless," Dallas interrupts. Mikaila and Bowie both turn to him with wide eyes. He takes a deep breath and stares into the concrete. "My mom left with my sister, my dad got drunk, and he hit me, so I left. I've been sleeping under a bridge for two months."

Mikaila walks forward and drops down on the curb of the parking lot. "My mom and dad are so strict I don't even feel like I can breathe anymore. She makes me wear makeup, and locks me out of the house if I get bad grades."

They sit in total silence for a moment before Bowie laughs with a watery voice and presses his hand to his face. "God, we are _so _fucked."

Then Dallas starts to laugh, and Mikaila joins in, and soon they're all practically rolling on the ground, clutching their stomachs and laughing even though it isn't really funny at all.

_I'm okay with this, _Dallas thinks.

And he means it.

**v. smoke**

"I can't believe we're doing this," Bowie murmurs. Dallas doesn't respond, too focused on fulfilling his task.

"Better start believing then," Mikaila says, leaning out of the passenger seat of the truck. Dallas rolls his eyes. Finally, he gets the last box in the trunk. Done.

He hops into the backseat, stretching and relishing in the tiny popping noises his back makes as it cracks. Jordan is humming a Mariah Carey song and tapping out the rhythm on the steering wheel.

As Bowie finishes his packing job and gets into the seat next to Dallas, Mikaila jumps. "Oh, I almost forgot something- Dal, I got you a late birthday gift!" She scrambles around in the glove box.

"Quick question: I have the longest legs, so why am I in the back?" Bowie asks, raising his hand. He _does _have the longest legs. He hit his growth spurt a few months ago, right after turning fifteen, and has overtaken all of them, even Jordan, since. Dallas is still stuck at a pitiful 5'6", only saved from being the shortest member by Mikaila.

This is somewhat nullified by the fact that Mikaila is going through a platform heels phase, which means to any outsider, Dallas is the smallest member of their group. A fact which he is relentlessly teased about.

"Because fuck you, that's why," Mikaila says.

"She makes a good argument," Dallas remarks, propping his feet up on the back of her seat.

Finally, Mikaila makes a noise of success, and pulls out a small, gift wrapped package. "Don't open it till we start driving." She pushes his feet off the seat, but he just puts them back on.

This continues for a few rounds until Dallas snaps, "I helped pay for this car, I am putting my feet where ever I damn well please." Mikaila mocks him under her breath, but relents.

"Who's taking night shift?" Jordan asks as he puts the keys in the ignition and turns on the radio.

"Not it," Mikaila and Dallas say in unison. Bowie groans in defeat.

"Alright. Where to first, oh wise sibling of mine?" Jordan turns to Mikaila.

"Hey, we already voted to go to Cali!" Dallas interjects. Jordan waves him off.

"Yeah, I still like Cali." Mikaila props her boots up on the dash, tiny flakes of mud falling onto the clean space.

"Right, Cali it is then."

Fourty five minutes later, Dallas opens the present Mikaila gave him. He lifts out a book with no cover and stares for a second, confused.

"Open it," Mikaila says. "I thought you could use a guide."

He opens it up, and staring back at him is-

**Fahrenheit ** **451**

He laughs and laughs, just to see how it feels.

It burns.

He likes it.

**end.**

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't find a way to fit this in the story without it being super awkward, but all the characters are LGBTQ+. Dallas is Aro/Ace, Mikaila is a big lesbian, Jordan is pan, and Bowie is just kind of a mess.
> 
> Edit: Made playlist for this book bc I have no self control
> 
> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/71hJ4327xBIbhwhqy2kLQ7


End file.
